


Trust

by theLiterator



Category: Batman and Robin Eternal (Comics), Grayson (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics)
Genre: Established Relationship, Identity Reveal, M/M, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-19 01:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15499392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/pseuds/theLiterator
Summary: Jason's having a hard enough time figuring out how to deal with his family between Dick Grayson's death and Bruce Wayne's amnesia, without some guy creeping on him and his brothers.





	Trust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Abbyromana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abbyromana/gifts).



“Dude, I can’t pull facial recognition off this,” Roy said, pushing back from the computer bank.

“The hell you can’t,” Jason snarled. Roy glanced warily over at the door that separated them from the rest of the warehouse, then turned back to glare at Jason.

“Really?” he demanded. “Fine. Watch this.”

Jason grumbled something uncomplimentary and Roy punched him in the shoulder before hitting the playback.

Jason watched as the argument played out, wondering yet again _why_ the creepy guy had been stalking Damian, of all people, and realized two things: Roy was right: there was no way they were getting facial recognition off of this, and they were dealing with something huge.

“That’s not normal,” he conceded, examining the weird, swirling outline that was where the guy’s face should be.

“Ya think?” Roy demanded, still irritated with Jason, which was only normal, really.

Jason didn’t bother replying, instead shoving his helmet back on and storming out of the warehouse, ignoring Tim hollering a question at him as he blew past.

“Lucky for you, it’s surprisingly easy to track them through local security cameras,” Roy said over the comms, and Jason grunted acknowledgement. 

"Then track them already," Jason snapped, and Roy laughed at him before he started navigating.

***

There were two of them now, and Jason realized that while they didn’t look like swirly-faced monsters to his eyes, he still couldn't pinpoint any specific facial features, any defining expressions or scars or marks.

It was disconcerting to say the least, since he’d been trained by the best to notice minor details like, say, what color someone’s eyes were.

Didn't matter, really. If you asked anybody, the minor details weren't really his thing.

“What the hell were you following that kid for?” Jason demanded, drawing a gun.

“Look, Red Hood,” the creepy guy said, holding up both hands.

The second one grabbed him and dragged him back, holding him in half an arm lock and gesturing at Jason with his palm flat and open, like that would calm him down. “Agent 37, this is not the mission!”

“I know, just, give me a second, okay?” Agent 37 deftly twisted loose and took a step back toward Jason, not nearly as worried about calming gestures as his partner. But then, the sort of guy who'd stalk ten year olds in Gotham probably wasn't worried about much at all.

Jason racked the slide on his gun and said, “Maybe you guys should leave this city and not come back, what do you say.” He'd like to pretend that he wasn't channeling Batman with that, but then he'd also like to pretend a lot of things about Batman. He'd always been bad about lying to himself.

That was part of the reason he was avoiding analyzing the overwhelming rage of protectiveness he'd felt over Damian when he'd first spotted this guy. 

“Red Hood,” the first guy said again. “Jason, wait.”

That turned out to be the exact thing to say to ensure that Jason didn’t wait. He knew the first shot landed from the way the guy staggered back, and then the two of them were running away and yelling at each other.

He pursued them far enough to make sure they knew he was serious, but then he went back home to his warehouse and the last two true Robins. Kids, still, which was one more thing to hate Batman for; kids who had nowhere else to go, no one left to defend them. Just Jason, who was an idiot and who couldn't even lie to himself about missing Dick.

It sucked, he thought miserably. All of it sucked.

***

“So,” Roy said, dishing out some of the stir fry he always made when it was his turn to cook. Tim had written them out a schedule, which Jason mostly forgot about and so his nights mostly involved eating takeout while Tim gave him disgusted glances from over the pizza box or chinese food carton or whatever.

It was tofu, which wasn’t Jason’s favorite, but since Damian refused eat meat, and Roy wasn't a culinary genius ready to fix a multiple dish meal so Damian could avoid something he didn't want, tofu was going to have to be fine. He kind of thought that if Dick had been alive, he'd probably be secretly really pleased that Jason was trying. He shoved his stir fry away at that thought and scowled at it.

_”He shot you!” Tiger said, sounding half amused, half offended._

_”He does that. Did you get a chance to see — is Damian okay?” Dick asked, shoving Tiger's hands away from his shoulder._

“How was, uhm, South America?” Roy asked Damian doggedly. He was a lot better at playing happy families than Jason ever could be, but that didn’t make him _good_.

Damian glared at his plate. “I was successful,” he snarled.

Roy nodded and made an encouraging noise while Jason pulled his plate back and picked at it.

_”Hold still while I bandage this up, and I’ll tell you,” Tiger said._

“Any new and exciting combat injuries we should be worried about?” Jason asked. “I ain’t going into a fight with you if I don’t know for sure you’ve got my back,” he added, scowling, because Damian didn't want him to care, and Jason didn't want to care, and he was only doing this because... well. He was doing it, but he was doing it his way.

“I am perfectly adequate!” Damian snarled, shoving his plate aside and standing up in one angry motion that only served to highlight how extremely _ten_ he was.

_”He seemed fine,” Tiger finally said, tying off the bandage and slapping it for good measure. “Angry, but then, children are like that. Better than your Red Hood.”_

_”He’s not mine —” Dick said, but he bit off the end of the sentence with a cry of pain as he flexed his arm, testing it._

“Yeah,” Jason said. “I just bet you are.”

“Leave him alone,” Tim said quietly, and Jason startled, glancing over at him.

 _Fuck this,_ Jason thought, and he shoved his own plate away again so he didn't have to deal with it anymore.

He didn’t get to see the long-suffering glances Tim and Roy exchanged behind his back, but it wasn't hard to guess at them since there was no mistaking the, “I wish Dick were here,” from Tim.

 _Don’t we all,_ Jason thought furiously.

***

He wished he could say that was the end of that, that no more creepy guys with impenetrable faces turned up with disturbing predictability wherever he or Tim or Damian happened to be, but Roy kept finding those distinctive blurs in camera footage when carefully erasing their existence from the record, and Tim had caught them in his own work as well.

Maybe it was better that Damian had no idea; he was under enough stress with his journey of redemption and his dad not remembering he existed (Jason always tried to suppress the schadenfreude at that, and never quite succeeded) and everything else that being ten years old and a superhero meant on top of that.

Roy had suggested that since the creepy guy wasn’t doing anything outright threatening, that maybe he wasn’t so much creepy as he was looking after them, but Jason knew intimately and well that nothing ever turned out _better_ than you anticipated.

***

The call came on a Thursday. An anonymous, accented voice on the line said, “Jason Todd, you need to come now, I’ll send you the details.” Details about _why_ weren’t sent, but a plane itinerary was. It got him and Roy to Siberia.

Jason landed in Novosibirsk on Saturday, already pissed off.

The guy who met him at the airport had the same weird facial issue that the ones before had, or maybe he was the same as the ones before and there had only ever been two of them, or maybe Jason was just losing his mind, and he grabbed them each by the arm and hauled them into a quiet alcove.

“What are we doing here?” Jason demanded, and the man shook his head. Jason thought for a second that maybe he had dark hair and dark eyes and a dark smile, but the moment passed and he was equally convinced he'd been blond and fair and frowning.

“I have to show you. I know you don’t trust me, Jason, but someone you’re responsible for is in danger and we need you to extract him."

It was about this point at which Jason realized he hadn’t heard from Damian in almost a week, which was a little long, even considering that it was _Damian_.

“What the fuck did you do to him?” Jason demanded, but the creepy faceless guy just shook his head and turned away.

It probably said a lot about him that his first thought was that it was a good thing Dick wasn't alive because Dick would never have forgiven Jason for letting Damian get kidnapped to Russia by faceless men who were using him to bait a trap.

Jason refused to think about it. 

Roy exchanged a glance with him, but Jason couldn’t risk that faceless guy was lying. Who the hell else was going to come after a tiny murder brat who didn’t know the meaning of friendship if it wasn’t the two of them?

Outside of Roy and the occasional check in from the Justice League, Jason, Damian, and Tim didn’t have anyone left except each other, really.

***

The warehouse the guy drove them to was on the outskirts of town, decrepit and dark in the brief winter sunlight. As soon as they walked inside, the temperature dropped about 10 degrees.

Roy clapped his hands together and shivered, but Jason just kept his hands at his hips, where he’d have guns if he’d had more warning about getting to Russia.

“I don’t like this,” Roy said in an undertone.

“Neither do I,” the guy replied. “But as it turns out, Agent 37 is largely irrational when it comes to the Red Hood and the rest of you idiots.”

Jason snorted. Roy ignored the insult.

As soon as they passed through the bulk of the warehouse Jason caught a glimpse of the other guy, Agent 37, probably the same Agent 37 he'd shot, bending over a makeshift cot. The creepy guy adjusted an IV line and brushed the patient’s hair out of his face, and Jason _knew_.

“You _bastard_ ,” Jason snarled, launching himself across the room. He still couldn’t make his brain resolve the man’s face into anything comprehensible, but he _knew_.

“I’m not trying to hurt him!” the man protested, making a very distinctive escape flip to keep Jason from getting at the kid in the cot. Jason just kept rushing him.

“Because of course you aren’t! Can’t accuse you of doing anything _wrong_ , after all, everything _you_ do is perfect and right, isn’t it?” He knew he wasn't making any sense, but there was anger lapping at his fingertips and running through his mind in rivulets of fire, making it so everything was hot and hateful and taking sense away from him.

“Jason!” Roy called, and Jason waved an acknowledgement, letting his name distract him. It wasn't enough, though, and he turned the gesture into a solid punch when he realized how close he'd gotten to his target.

“Where the fuck do you get off, Richard Grayson, faking your _death_?” he demanded.

“Jason —”

“Bruce, Bruce makes sense; he's faked his own death before, this amnesia thing is all him, all the way through. He never gave a damn about any of us, but you —” Jason took a deep breath and then exhaled again, trying to get control. Maybe even succeeding a little, which shouldn't be disappointing. “Well, I guess the Damian thing makes sense, at least. I’ve been saying all along that you…”

“Jason, don’t be an ass!” Dick snapped.

Jason took another swing at him, but Dick countered and then twisted them both to the floor, pinning him in place and looking down at him with a completely unmemorable face.

“Oh, so this is my fault then?” Jason asked, cocking his head to the side and daring Dick to hit him back.

Dick froze and then sat back, still astride Jason's hips but no longer pinning him. Jason could easily have gotten away and told Roy to grab Damian. Left.

“I can see you’re angry with me,” Dick said.

“No fucking shit,” Jason growled. “You don’t even care about us!”

“Jason —” It was weird how familiar the tone was when he couldn't even recognize the voice.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Jason snapped.

“No, listen,” Dick said, leaning forward and grabbing Jason’s face, his gloved hands chilly against his bare skin. “I knew you had it all under control.”

“No,” Jason said, shaking him off. 'Under control' were not words people used to describe situations involving Jason. That was just a fact; ask anybody.

“I _trust you_ ,” Dick said. “I’d have come back, but this is too important, and I knew you would take care of them, even if Bruce couldn’t. _I trust you_.”

Jason froze.

Dick carefully tugged them around so instead straddling Jason's hips, he was sitting in Jason’s lap, their faces inches apart.

“You know I trust you, right?”

Jason hesitated a moment, two, and then finally, he said “Yes?”

“Yes.” Dick shifted slightly.

Jason glanced across the warehouse, to where Roy seemed to have Damian mostly under control while he murmured back and forth with the other guy.

“I’m still pissed that you’re alive," Jason said. He wasn't sure he'd ever _not_ be pissed about that, but it was pretty par for his life, so what did it matter?

He sort of hated that he didn’t get to see Dick’s shit eating grin at that, which proceeded to piss him off even more.

“You wouldn’t be you if you weren’t, Jay,” Dick whispered. “But that’s not important. Damian’s sick, and I can’t leave Novosibirsk to take care of him.”

Jason snarled at him.

Dick bent forward and kissed Jason, softly, and he may not have looked like Dick or like anyone at all, but he kissed like Dick, and Jason groaned and dropped his forehead against his. “Fuck you,” he said, still angry, always angry, but resigned to everything this meant, for now. He was probably just resigned to _Dick_ , really, which sucked. A lot.

Dick did always get his way, in the end.

“I’m trusting you, Jason.”

“I know,” Jason said. He didn’t say, “Thanks,” or “I trust you too,” because he tried really hard not to lie to anyone but himself these days, but he thought acknowledgement was enough, for now.


End file.
